After capturing their fourth Grand Slam title at January's Australian Open, Errani and Vinci went through a bit of a drought by their standards by not reaching a final for five straight events. But then at their last tournament in Stuttgart, the leaders on the Road To Singapore leaderboard did not surrender more than three games in a set en route to the title.

Errani and Vinci posted another dominant scoreline against Kuznetsova and Stosur, 6-3, 6-1, avenging a loss to the Russian-Australian duo in their Indian Wells opener in March. Kuznetsova lost a tight three-setter to Agnieszka Radwanska in singles earlier in the day. The second-seeded Italians, who won the title here in 2012, next take on Vania King and Zheng Jie.

"We got the win last week in Portugal, so we're getting matches under our belt," Black said. "We had a tough match today, tough opponents. We're happy we came out and played really well. We're looking forward to the next match."

"We had to adapt to the conditions pretty quickly because we just got here on Sunday, but it's been good," Mirza said. "Today was a much better match than yesterday. And hopefully we can keep getting better as the tournament progresses."

Defending champion Angelique Kerber and the returning Serena Williams headline the acceptance list for the 2017 Australian Open. Meanwhile, Australian teenager Lizette Cabrera and Luksika Kumkhum have earned the first two wildcards.